Deadman Walking
by Tallielle
Summary: My take on what happens after the finale! I know, I know you must be getting tired of post finale fics by now, but I hope mine can grab your attention. The first chapter is pretty angsty but the story line will be good! I promise!
1. Chapter 1

"No Kate, don't leave me, ok? Just hang on! Kate, please?" he begged quietly, as he stroked her hair, his eyes pleading with hers. "Kate you can't go!" He felt something inside of him crumbling. He needed to say something, anything to make her stay. He needed to tell her...to tell her the truth before it was too late. And then he did, because there simply was nothing else to do.

"Kate, Kate, I love you!" He said it like he was a sailor throwing a rope out to a drowning man. He wanted to give her this truth to hang onto, so she'd have a light when the darkness closed in, a night light to wave around when she could no longer stare it down.

He thought he saw her faintly smile through the tears and the pain just before...

He snapped awake in a cold sweat. He was having the dream again. Usually in the dream he didn't lose her, usually it ended with her waking up in the hospital and pinning him to his chair with her big brown gaze and saying in that breathy, scared, sometimes vulnerable tone that he swore she only let him hear, "You're here?"

And then he'd grab her hand and say "Always."

Sometimes he woke up whispering "always" with a slight smile on his lips. Alexis said that the only time he smiled these days was when he was asleep.

He cursed as he looked at the time on the clock that sat on the living room table. He'd fell asleep on the couch again. He moved slowly and heavily to a sitting position and looked around, the melancholy that had been sitting in his eyes for the past months once again settling back into it's old space. His mother and Alexis would have no doubt guessed where he was at this point. When he started to not come home at night they had questioned him at first and then stopped bothering him.

He knew where she'd hid her key. He always had had keen powers of observation.

The first night that he had come to her apartment he had been busted on a breaking and entering accusation, but once that patrol officers had taken him down to the precinct and gotten their behinds handed to them he never had a problem again.

He reached for a pillow and pressed it to his nose...it still smelled like her. The scent was faint now, like the way a dried rose smells after it has been pressed between the pages of a diary too long, but it still made Castle think of her long curling hair and how her smile knocked he wind out of him every time she turned it his way. He should have told her sooner...

He got up and went over to the drawer where he had found the box locked away. He gave a slight smile to the ghosts in the room...he should have always known Kate was a box person. She was sentimental, but she kept her momentos locked up, just like her feelings.

He took out the box and went through it again, pausing on the picture of her and her mother and then the newspaper clipping about the fundraiser he had held for her and then finally on a candid picture of the two of them together. Every time he saw it he had to smile through his tears. He looked like the cat that had just eaten the canary and she was letting out a huge, carefree full on laugh. Her head was tipped back and her eyes were closed. She was touching his arm.

What he would give to recapture a moment like that.

Under the picture, in her dainty little handwriting was one word-"Always." The first night he had found that he had almost had to curl up on the floor to fight the waves of anguish that had washed over him.

Slowly, he put the items back in the box and returned it to its dusty hiding spot in the drawer. He resumed his spot on the couch and took out the sheaf of paper that he almost always seemed to carry on him these days and the pen he had stolen his first day at the precinct.

He felt a letter coming on.

He had been writing her letters these past months and pouring his absolute heart out into them. As a writer it was the only coping mechanism he found appropriate. He wrote to her when he was missing her the most and now was one of those moments. He never failed to sign the letters "Always, Rick." Whenever Martha or Alexis saw him writing one they knew not to bother him and they also knew where they would find him the next morning-in the graveyard.

He left them propped up against the base of her tombstone. Every time he returned the previous letter would be gone and in a way he liked to think that had meant she had somehow gotten them, even though he knew that was impossible. He knew that groundskeeper probably removed them and threw them away. He didn't care. Something about the ritual of it made him feel better.

So there he was. Writing another letter.

If only Rick Castle had known the wild ride the universe had in store for him.


	2. Chapter 2

She turned the key in the lock carefully and pushed open the door slowly as if she didn't something might jump out at her and devour her whole. It felt so uncanny to be back and standing in this hallway with everything over and everything resolved. It had been an exhausting and emotionally draining couple of months.

Just faking her own death was enough to give her nightmares. Keeping it from Castle (as well as asking Esposito and Ryan to keep it from him) only made it worse. Having to track down and dig up evidence on a very powerful, well-protected state official...well that was the icing on the proverbial mess of a cake.

Castle's letters had both bolstered her through and broken her heart at the same time. She had gone over how she was going to explain the situation to him over and over again in her head and it still never came out right and never felt like enough. The hurt and betrayal she knew she would see in his eyes always made her feel slightly sick. She hoped that one day he would come to understand the necessity of not letting him in on the situation. She had done it to protect him and his family...and herself.

She swung open her door and put down her suitcase and let out a huge sigh of relief. It was all over now! She could get back to her life and things could go back to normal. She frowned, if they could truly go back to normal. Well at any rate at least she could go and sink down into her comfortable couch just like when things were just the way they were supposed to be...

"Castle?" It came out as a whispered yelp.

A startled Richard Castle shot up from the couch and blinked at the woman standing in the door way several times. His heart dropped into his shoes. He had to be dreaming.

He rubbed his eyes several times but she still didn't go away. Maybe it was time for him to check himself into a mental facility. He closed his eyes hard and when he opened them she was still there.

"K-K-Kate?" he stammered in a strangled, disbelieving voice.

Katherine Beckett felt the wind get knocked out of her. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. Not one bit.


	3. Chapter 3

She stood frozen in the doorframe, like a deer in the headlights. As much as every fiber in her being wanted to run to the man on her couch and hold him like it would save her life she knew that it would only further damage him and confuse the situation.

For a while neither of them spoke, they just stared at each other like a person surprised to see their own reflection. The air inside of Kate's apartment grew heavy, like the sky before a thunderstorm. Kate grabbed the door to steady herself.

Castle took a deep breath and then let it out before running one hand over his face and then through his hair. A smile and tears were ominously threatening to break out on Kate's face so she bit her lip instead. She used to know what each one of his little movements meant and could gauge how he was feeling based on them. She used to be able to read him like an open book. She was surprised to find she could still remember what some of them meant.

"Castle...I..." it came out as a whisper and then Kate had to cover her mouth with her hand. Her eyes gave away what she wouldn't let her words say.

"You." Was all he got out at first before he took another deep breath. "You're supposed to be dead." He reached over to her side table and turned on the lamp like someone who had lived there for a while and it briefly occurred to her that he had been coming here to feel like he was still near her. The hand that had been at her mouth was now firmly pressed on her chest. Maybe if she pressed hard enough she could keep her heart from breaking for him.

"Oh, Castle." When she slapped him with that wounded brown gaze of hers he hardly knew what to do.

He pressed a hand to his forehead again and glanced at the figure in the doorframe. "I think I need to check myself into a mental facility.

"I'm real." Was all Kate could think to say. "I'm here."

It was after those words she saw an abrupt change in the man on the couch.

"I need to check." He rose up from the couch and crossed the room in a few bounds of his large frame and before she knew it he was holding her to him, feeling her, smelling her hair and it was almost too much to bear, this closeness to him. There were so many things she wanted to say but couldn't find the words to express. She wanted to kiss him, to get lost in him, to finally surrender control. But she wouldn't. Not yet, he was too fragile and wounded and confused. All because of her.

Castle fleetingly noticed that the front of his shirt was getting soaked and then that he was shaking like a leaf. They both were. The maelstrom of emotions that was swirling inside of him was almost too much to take-anger, hurt, confusion, joy, elation and love made for a very interesting cocktail. Her hair smelt just as he remembered and her body felt-

Just then a familiar voice floated down the hallway.

"I wonder if she is ready to come back to the real world of detective work." Esposito was saying. "I would personally be relieved to no longer have to skulk around all incognito. At any rate, it will be nice to have her back in the land of the li-"

The two partners screeched to a halt in front of Kate's door and took in the scene in front of them. Ryan looked suddenly pathetic with the bouquet he was clutching in one hand.

"This is bad bro." he managed to whisper out of the side of his mouth.

Esposito just shot him a stern look.

"Castle, hey!" Ryan said awkwardly which garnered a hard slap on the arm from Esposito.

Suddenly something in Castle's brain snapped into place. The puzzle was now making a lot more sense to him.

"Wait." He took a step back from Kate but grabbed her shoulders to steady himself. He felt like the kid who had spun in circles one too many times in the same direction.

"You both knew?" he looked at Kate. "They knew?"

"Uh, we're going to go." Ryan chimed in. The situation was getting really uncomfortable very quickly.

"Castle, this wasn't supposed to happen this way. You weren't supposed to find out like this." The words were tumbling out of Kate's mouth like water but Castle didn't hear any of them. She watched his shoulders sink and inch lower and a bit more of the strength sap out of his posture.

"I trusted you."

"Castle, I couldn't tell you. I wanted to protect you." She paused here and looked up at him with pleading eyes. "I wanted to protect Alexis and Martha too. If I had told you it would have put you and everyone you love in danger. If I had done that I would not have been able to live with a clear conscience." She paused here. "I also couldn't risk my cover being blown."

Just as quickly as he had closed the space between them he now widened the distance.

"I thought you were dead. I thought I lost you. I am", he stopped and swallowed the word. "I was supposed to be... your man, your GUY. The one who was there for you no matter what. I told you that I would stand beside you always. I was your partner. And I should have been there with you to take the bastard down who killed your mother. And who I though killed you."

He was roaring like a wounded bear and Kate knew he had every right to. She had expected this. But in all her dreams and nightmares she had never felt his hurt as keenly as she did on that night.

For a moment he thought he saw Kate mirror his emotions and fall apart. But in true Katherine Beckett fashion she steeled herself and shoved the vulnerability he had seen briefly leak out back deep down inside the Pandora's box she had buried beneath her layers.

"I needed to do this alone, Castle."

"You didn't have to."

And with that, he grabbed his coat and was gone.

After he closed the door, Katherine Beckett sat down on her couch, laid her head in her hands and sobbed.


	4. Chapter 4

He was hunched in the oversized chair in his living room looking like a hurt and hulking beast. He had turned the fireplace on even though the inside of his apartment was not particularly cold. But he was, inside. He hoped the flames and whiskey could drive it away or at least beat it back to the point that he would have enough wherewithal to answer the cell phone ring that had been providing his background music for the past two hours.

Outside the rain drove in silvery, angry daggers against the windowpane.

_What an appropriate ambiance._ Rick thought bitterly before taking another swig from the glass of whisky in front of him. He stared intently at the chair across from him, his eyes roving over the details of an item so familiar and so foreign that the paradox clawed at his insides.

He heard a quiet step behind him and then a heavy sigh.

His mother. Even the things that no one else was supposed to hear came out dramatically.

"Richard, darling." Her voice was quiet, like a wind through bulrushes.

She approached the second chair and gingerly removed the Kevlar vest with "WRITER" blazed across the chest like it was a sacred relic.

She sighed again after she settled down into the chair across from him and he could see every line on her face made soft by the rain and firelight. For the first time her noticed a little bit of her usual sparkle was gone, her brightness had dimmed. The worry was clearly curled up in her eyes, like an ever-present lazy cat.

"Richard." She paused and her son knew that she was considering her words carefully, turning them over in her head like river rocks. She petted the top of one hand with the palm of her other, a nervous habit of hers.

"I think it is time you start living again dear. I know that a big part of you died that day..."

The piercing ring of his cell phone cut through the rooms heavy, swirling shadows and the melancholy mood that had settled over them.

He once again pressed the ignore button and looked across the room at his mother with sad, worn out eyes. He couldn't put a name to his feelings yet. Wouldn't. He was still in the bright green grass with the warm sticky scarlet on his hands, the taste of bullets and bile in his mouth and the raspy gasp of her fading breaths loud in his ears. He was still in anguish in her doorway, holding her again in his arms. Crushing her to make sure she was real, the smell of her hair capturing his senses with its delicate scent. He was still walking out of her apartment building with his coat in his hands and his heart in his shoes.

He took one deep breath, two. The sound of his phone jolted him back to where he was sitting across from his mother the tearstains across the front of his shirt still drying in the firelight.

"Darling, who is calling you? It must be important, they won't stop ringing the phone."

He looked at his mother again looking so small in her silk robe across from him and felt defeated. A bit of his resolve crumbled. How could he tell her? He lifted the glass of whisky to his lips, glad for the fire it shot down to his stomach that reminded him he could still feel something bright. His hand was shaking; he held the glass too hard. It was a concentrated effort to put in back down.

The phone rang again.

He hit ignore again.

And still, his mother sat there, with her beseeching look.

"A ghost." He finally answered, a bit amused at his bitter witticism. " A ghost is calling me mother."

He instantly regretted his tone when he saw the shadow of concern and confusion fall over her face. She took a deep breath.

"Rick, Kate is..." she was interrupted by a frantic pounding on the door.

"CASTLE! CASTLE, I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!" It was loud and demanding, but the kind of loud that tells you a person is scared and vulnerable.

"Here, mother." Castle answered. "Kate is here."


	5. Chapter 5

_I am absolutely loving all of your comments and praises! Keep them coming, they keep me inspired! Anyway I decided to add the disclaimer on this chapter to tell you one and all that I do not own Castle and probably wouldn't know what to do if I did. Own the show that is...the man...well...I have some ideas. :D Anyway, on with the show._

He walked to the door with a brusque bounce in his walk and opened it abruptly. The snarky comment he had prepared died on his lips when he saw her in the doorway looking as if she had just climbed out of a shipwrecked vessel. Her hair was plastered into a curling halo about her head and her clothes...God her clothes. As mad as he was at her he couldn't help but notice how her wet clothes clung to her body.

His eyes hardened and he met her brown stone one with his steely blue. Her mascara was smudged and she looked as if she had been crying, though it could have just been the rain. Despite the glimmer of sadness he saw briefly flicker in their depths he also saw a look he knew well-stubborn willful Beckett caliber determination and (he was slightly shocked to see) the tiniest spark of anger.

She was staring him down. Well he wasn't going to back down. Not this time. He had a right to an explanation and no matter how small and vulnerable she looked or how fiery the determination in her eyes he was going to get what he was owed.

Kate felt the cold rivulets of rain stick and drip down her spine, the wet fingers of precipitation caressing her in places she had not been gently touched in a while. Her mouth tasted like salt and summer air, except not the kind that would be mixed with sunshine. She had cried the whole way over, glad that the rain could hide her tears. She absolutely hated to cry. Now she shivered against the icy pin-pricks that were biting into her skin and took in the scene in front of her. The darkness was almost too vivid for her to handle. In a dizzying, sickening whir she took in the Kevlar vest, the whiskey glass, the drawn shades and an aghast Martha- before returning her gaze to Castle. She set her jaw, a movement that Castle had come to associate with a stubborn horse digging its hooves into the dirt and refused to budge. She crossed her arms, uncrossed them and then crossed them again.

"We. Need. To. Talk." She punctuated each word breathily so that they became like a hand knocking on the walls he had quickly resurrected to protect himself.

In the background Martha had finally pulled herself together and was now shooting a hard as nails look at her son through narrowed eyes.

"Rick." Though her gaze was stern her voice was soft. "For Pete's sake let the woman in. She is standing outside in the hallway shivering like an abused puppy." When he went to protest a slight lift of her hand severed his speech.

"I am sure her reasons are...were extreme. For now I am happy she is alive, as you should be. Explanations, atonement" at this she turned her gaze to Kate, who Castle thought he saw shift her weight uncomfortably, "and forgiveness" she was once again looking at her son, "will come with time. For now have a little compassion."

"Compassion! Compassion? Mother, I..." but before he could say anything else Martha was at the door with an armful of blankets and towels, ushering the sopping Detective in.

"Martha," Kate offered the older woman a watery smile and pressed a tiny hand into her arm, "Thank you."

Martha sighed and looked at her with kind eyes. "Honey, I am sure glad you are alive. We were getting a little worried about Wednesday Adams over there." Her attempt to lighten the mood only lasted but a second. She leaned over and gave Kate and awkward type of half hug, with the blankets and towels askance between them. She leaned over into Kate's ear. "He needs time." and then, "You sure better have a damn good reason for turning his life upside down." Though Kate looked as if she was holding steady, her insides were a tumultuous swirl of catastrophic emotions. She needed to pull together and push through, like she always had managed to do before. But this time it was different. This time when he had turned on his heel and walked out of her apartment after telling her she didn't have to go it alone she felt such a soul crushing finality in his departure that it had rattled her to the core. She hadn't realized exactly the enormity of how much she needed him before that gesture. And God did she need him like a ship needed an anchor. And God did it scare her.

Martha draped a towel and a blanket about her shoulders and then quickly made her exit, leaving the two staring across the room at each other like wary adversaries.

She sighed, made her way across the room and sat in the chair Martha had just been sitting in moments before. Castle couldn't help but notice how the firelight played with the shadows on her face. She absent-mindedly picked up his Kevlar vest and started to toy with it, one small hand gently stroking the word "Writer" that was sprawled across the chest.

"I'm trying to find the words..." she started and stopped like a faulty record player. Her chest was growing heavy. This was all wrong. When her and Castle used to share moments of silence between them it used to feel like a safe place she wanted to curl up and crawl into. The silence that sat between them now hung as heavy and ominous as a morgue sheet.

"There is so much you need to know...if...if you will listen." Her voice belied her weariness. Castle heard battle scars hiding in it that he hadn't noticed before. She sounded worn, and strained. Spent. She used to sound tenacious and gun-ho. Now he just felt as if the heaviness of the world had settled into her bones to bog her down. For a moment he realized he was part of that heaviness and for a moment he felt a twinge of guilt before another flare of anger surged up within his veins.

Despite this he nodded as he settled into the chair across from her and tried to ignore how gently and tenderly she was toying with his vest.

"I was really shot." Her voice was small and soft where it was usually big and hard and she sounded like a child telling a tenuous truth. She parted the blankets she had settled into and pulled down the collar of her shirt so that he could see the scar sitting like a small white pit upon her breastbone.

"Josh," she saw Castle flinch slightly at the mention of her boyfriend's name, "Josh saved my life." That was the truth she hated the most. That she owed such a big debt to a man she wasn't in love with. But he was a man that she did love, at least for that.

Castle let out a long sigh and ran a hand over his face. He didn't know if he was ready to handle the truths in the darkness.

"I didn't know about the plan until I woke up from surgery, I swear Castle." She nearly barked this sentence and Castle saw desperation for him to believe her burning like a funeral pyre behind her eyes. "The reason I got hit where I did...something went wrong, it wasn't supposed to go down that way." She couldn't tell him that it was his movement to save her that had caused her to step out of the safe zone and into the bullet, therefore causing her to dance on the precipice between this world and the next.

"To not be able to tell you where I was or that I was okay...it was..." he could see her struggling with herself and getting angry, flustered. She still couldn't bring herself to be that raw, that vulnerable and yet her heart seemed to push up into her vocal chords and make her blurt out the next word, "hell. It was hell, okay?" She said it more as an angry proclamation than a confession, but it still felt to him like it was a bit of one anyway.

She crossed her arms in a defensive, closed off gesture. Emotional vulnerability made Kate Beckett feel extremely uneasy. She was flustered, she would admit that... and Castle could see that she was clearly upset.

"There," she bristled, "is that what you wanted to hear, Castle? My life...doing my job without you...it was hell. So...so I need you to come back. I need you to come back to work. With me. I just need my life to return to some semblance of normal. The Chief," she paused and took a deep breath, "Montgomery." She chirped with a quiet reverence before barreling on, "made arrangements to have you stay with me as long as either of us would have it. And let's face it...though no one really wants to admit it you were...you _are_.. an asset to the NYPD. They need you. We _need _you."

She fell silent here for a long moment and looked down at the vest once more, her fingers tracing over the word "writer" one more time before she hurriedly glanced up with a streak of fear in her eyes. "I...I need you." She paused, and then cleared her throat, ran her hand through her hair. Her chest tightened. "To come back." The last three words were whispered, almost like a quiet afterthought and in a way they were. "I don't expect it to be what it was but I want to work on it. This partnership is unlike anything..." she paused again, the words weren't coming out like she wanted them too, they were leaving her too broken open in front of him. "Just think about it."

Another long stretch of silence and a rather defeated look from Castle. He wanted to let her in again at that very moment, but his heart had other ideas. It needed time. A deep wound always was slow to heal.

"I will." Castle said a bit hoarsely before coughing and taking a swig of whiskey. "I will." This time it was stronger- a firm statement rather than a maybe.

"Thank you." She got up and shed the blankets.

He rose like an awkward colt, just as unsure of his movements as he was his feelings.

"I'll drive you home." That simple sentence felt so right and yet...

Kate shook her head. "That's okay Castle. I'll take a cab, you need your rest."

"Right."

She paused in the doorway. "If I call, you'll answer?"

Even if Castle had bit his tongue the same answer would have still leapt out of his mouth.

"Always."

Castle wasn't quick enough to catch the sad half moon of a smile that the NYPD detective offered him before quickly slipping out of his living room.

Somewhere inside him, a small stone in the wall he had built to protect himself shifted.


	6. Chapter 6

_Thank you so so SO much for your reviews and favorites and alerts and all of that! I have been floored by the response! Don't worry though you are going to get SO SO SO much more since this story has basically been playing like an episode in my head. I really don't have control over it anymore, ha. Once again, I do not own CASTLE...and wouldn't know what to do if I did! I hope you guys enjoy this rather meaty chapter and remember, us fanfic authors always love when you leave us some love...or cookies... 3_

Sleep eluded her. There were too many thoughts swirling nebulously inside of her head, too many emotions sitting heavily on her chest. She stared at the ceiling, restless and unsure of how to feel.

When she had been undercover and on special assignment to catch her mother's killer she had read Castle's letters when she couldn't sleep. His words soothed her frayed nerves and broke her heart all at once but somehow gave her a sense of hope to cling onto; a sense that someday everything would be alright and her topsy turvy world would be righted. She had never had anyone love her like that-that desperately, that passionately, that wholly.

When she saw him again the truth of it exploded in her chest like a bomb and she was still trying to piece together the shrapnel; to perform damage control. When she had seen him sleeping on her couch like a forlorn little boy it had hit her in the gut so hard that she never fully caught her breath. Everything that she had let herself feel in the quiet minutes of the deep nights over the past three months had bubbled up to the surface and washed over her like a torrent.

She still wanted him to fill her gaps; her empty spaces; permeate her darkness with his light, his warmth.

She let out a sigh and blinked up at her ceiling again. The silence, which had been comforting before now mocked her and seemed to echo loudly off of the four walls around her.

_What did you expect?_ It seemed to ask.

_To come home and just fall into each other's arms?_

Of course she didn't expect that, even she wasn't sure she was ready for that quite yet. His handprints still smoldered upon her back from where he had clutched her tight in his hug, she still felt the ghost of his body pressing into hers, filling up the valleys of air that her curves formed with his mass.

She touched her lips in the dark, her mind flashing back to their kiss and how it had consumed her. Her lips had burned for days after but her mind had been busy stuffing it away into a forgotten corner, a box locked with a lock named fear. If the kiss was any indication, a physical relationship with Castle at this point was definitely out of the question. It would have absolutely wrecked the both of them.

So what had she expected?

She didn't know, but it wasn't this heart-wrenching reality.

And then there was Josh. She owed him her life. No matter how she sliced it and diced it he would now always be there at the periphery of her universe. She touched her scar and frowned.

But hadn't Castle save her life in a way too?

_Forget sleep._

She got up and put her feet on the cold floor and flipped on the light. She needed to get out of here and go somewhere that might ease her mind. She pulled on a pair of old jeans and a rumpled oxford shirt and headed out the door-she knew just the place.

He couldn't sleep. But then again, sleepless nights were nothing new to him. This time it was different though. Instead of missing her he had so many questions for her floating in his mind and so many damning words. And loving words. Everything rattled around in his head like so much loose change.

_My head hurts._

It could have been the half a bottle of whiskey her drank or maybe just the fact that hours before she had been standing in his living room smelling of flowers and rain and sorrow, looking at him with vulnerable, pleading eyes.

Part of him felt guilty for not taking her in his arms and forgiving her right there. Part of him felt justified.

_Richard, darling, you can't be mad forever. Don't think that woman didn't fight like a cornered mountain lion with whoever told her that she couldn't tell you she was still alive? Look at me. Some people never get to experience that once in a lifetime, earth shaking love that has produced some of the most divine art, literature, music, monuments. Some people never get that great knocks the wind out of you type love story...but you...God look at you. Despite the pain you are feeling now I'd still have to say I think you are one of the lucky ones. I've seen you in love before but never like this! Richard, she's the Eurydice to your Orpheus. Personally I wouldn't give up on someone I've already followed to hell and back._

He had been replaying his mother's words in his head all night and found himself alternating between being agitated and confused. Time, he just needed a little time.

And maybe a little sleep...which he obviously wasn't going to get tonight.

_To hell with sleep._

He got up and tried to make himself look half presentable before heading out the door.

There was only one place to go when he couldn't sleep and needed to get his mind off things for a while.

"The Nook" was a quiet and charming little 24 hour coffee shop down by Chelsea Piers. It was really quite a cozy little concept...it was a kind of half library, half coffee shop type deal. Thought it was relatively small, the book lined corners and aisles gave way to cozy little hideaways for people who wanted to get away to curl up with a cup. Kate had her own favorite oversized loveseat in a shadowy mahogany lined nook and silently hoped that it had not yet been taken by one of the eccentrics she was sure would be lurking at the shop at this hour. She sighed as she ducked in from the now misty predawn and was comforted to see the familiar face of the usual late night coffee girl behind the counter.

She registered surprise and then a happy spark of greeting in the girls eyes before she spoke.

"Well hey there Detective Beckett! I haven't seen you around in a long while. Will it be your usual late night concoction?"

The warmth and familiarity of the girls greeting somehow eased a small ribbon of stress that had been crunched between Beckett's shoulder blades.

"Just a chamomile tea tonight, Caitlin."

"What's got you restless tonight?" the girl made conversation as she prepared Kate's tea.

"The usual." Was Kate's tight lipped, though not unfriendly reply.

"Murder, mystery, mind boggling clues..." the petite and spunky brunette paused for a second before continuing, "men."

Kate didn't answer.

"How is your writer boy partner? I haven't heard a peep about him in the newspapers these days, though his mother has been on page six quite a lot lately."

Kate gave her an empty eyed stare before offering up a sigh and a little eye roll. She faked a small smile. "Same."

"You should really talk to him. I think it might help you get some sleep."

Beckett almost spilled the hot tea the girl had just handed her all down the front of herself.

"Just a suggestion. Your total is 2.65. You know what? Forget it, tea is on me tonight. You go to your corner and enjoy it. Free refills until 5 am. You know the drill."

"Thanks, Caitlin. Do you know if anyone is in my usual haunt?"

"Uh no actually, I don't...I haven't really been paying attention to who has gone over into that section lately, sorry."

"That's okay," Kate sighed, turning too quickly to catch the slight sparkle in Caitlin's eye.

"Have a good night."

"You too."

Kate rounded the corner and let one hand trail absentmindedly along the shelves of books while the other clutched her hot cup of tea. What did she want to read tonight?

She halted in the Classics section and found herself drawn to the very top shelf-the As. Jane Austen. Her finger stroked the rough spine of _Pride and Prejudice._

A dose of Mr. Darcy maybe?

She pulled the book down and worked her way over to her corner. The combination of the library-like scents and tea had already relaxed her some and she was really looking forward to climbing up into the overstuffed cushions of her favorite chair and falling into Elizabeth Bennett's world with it's grand images of Pemberly and misty moors, so far away from her reality.

As she rounded the corner she caught the silhouette of man draped comfortably in her spot a thin book open in his large hands, a coffee at his side. A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth, now she had to find a new spot.

As she got closer to the corner and the man's features came into view her heart began to quicken.

Then she was nearly standing in front of him.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit._

"Castle?" at that particular moment in time he was the last person she wanted to see. The panic and guilt that she had been tamping down over the course of the past couple of hours game gushing out again.

"Beckett. Oh. Hi. You come here?" he sounded nervous and bashful, almost as if he felt like he hand done something wrong. He met her eyes and she saw that the delicate purple shadows under them mirrored hers.

She sighed and settled down heavily next to him, throwing her book on the small table in front of the love seat.

"Only when I can't sleep."

"Me too."

"This is my favorite spot."

"Yours too?"

She nodded as a glimmer of giddiness flashed in her chest.

Then there was a brief silence, but it wasn't awkward like it had been before. This time it was more comfortable and Castle swore he could almost hear her thinking in the silence.

They were both looking down at their laps because neither one could bring themselves to look at the other. Not quite yet. When she had first appeared in the dusty corner he had had to catch his breath. She would always be the kind of beautiful that sucked the air out of the room, but seeing her in those worn out jeans and wrinkled shirt with her hair all rumpled did something to him that he hadn't had done to him in a long while.

Suddenly her felt her small hand on top of his and to his surprise he didn't make a move to yank his hand. He had forgotten how surprisingly soft her palms were.

"Castle...I'm..."

He gave her hand a small squeeze and sighed. "I know." He sounded hollow, tired, spent...empty. But she was still glad he didn't make her say it. Apologies were always hard for Katherine Beckett to make.

She lifted her head then and brought her gaze over to him. She started a bit when she caught his stare. A shadow shifted in the deep well of his eyes.

"I want you to know that I wanted to shoot the woman who told me I couldn't speak to you." _Touch you. Feel you. Need you. See you. Love you._

She paused. Then. "At first. Then she explained the danger it would put you in. And Martha. And Alexis. If I had...if I had gone down...I just couldn't die with that on my head, with your blood on my hands. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you." She said this last line like a fierce exclamation.

She felt him relax a bit next to her. "I know." He was looking at the ceiling, searching for the words. "It's going to take time for me not be angry...hurt..." he couldn't find the right word, and then, "scared. It is going to take time for me not be scared anymore." She knew what he meant. "But I don't want to fight about this anymore."

Oh thank God! Something inside her caved and she found that she was on the verge of tears. She would win him back, she would.

"Good." She still made no motion to move her hand. As a force of habit she inched closer to him and Castle let her. Without thinking she laid his head on his shoulder. He didn't move. They sat there like that for a long time, until their drinks had gone cold and the first rays of dawn peaked through the window. They were both half asleep when her phone rang she nearly jumped halfway out of her skin.

"Beckett." The softness he had detected in her voice earlier was all but gone and her professional cop tone was firmly in place. She quickly withdrew her hand. There were a few quick nods and "uh-huhs" and he was amazed to see a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth when she hung up and turned to him.

"I never thought I'd say this about a murder, but this is right up your alley, Castle."

She watched the corners of his mouth, where she knew his smile hid, turn up ever so slightly. That damn little bird of hope fluttered in her chest cavity again.

"Lets go."

_That last little scene was the one I have had stuck in my head for a while now. I hope you liked it! Tell me what ya think..._


	7. Chapter 7

_Sorry I haven't updated for the past couple of days, work has been consuming my life! And sorry this is so short, but here is a little tid bit to get you through and to give you a glimpse of where this story is going! Thank you again for your reviews, they make me happy in my heart. _

_~T_

"So you are basically telling me this guy is a real life super hero?" Castle all but squealed. Kate glanced over at him in the passenger's side of the car and had to fight the small smile that she felt melting away from the corners of her mouth at the tickled pink look on his face. She'd been slightly disappointed when he hadn't protested her driving and just slipped into the passenger's side. It had reminded her that although Castle was pretending things were normal, there were still a lot of things she had left unresolved and the balance in their relationship would be off for a while yet.

She rolled her eyes at him and he could see the smile that she was fighting hiding in the shadow at the corner of her mouth, where he used to imagine she kept her sweetest kisses.

"Vigilante, Castle, our killer is a vigilante."

"Vigilante Debutant-ay." He quipped, "Definitely a super hero. I wonder what his super hero name is? Why do we want to catch him again? Especially if he is killing guys like the victims you've just described to me..."

She sighed and looked over at him. "Despite the fact that within the last week he has killed a gang leader, a mobster and a rapist he is still on the wrong side of the law. He doesn't get to play God, Castle."

Castle gasped. "What if he is half God? Like Thor?"

She ignored his comment and brushed off a chill brought on by their surroundings. As a cop Kate had seen almost everything, but this part of town still never failed to crawl up under her skin and give her the creeps.

Castle was still talking over in the passenger's seat, the animation in his face very closely mimicking that of a little boy. That was one of the things Kate loved about him, his uninhibited excitement and zest for life. She was glad to get a glimpse of it again. Maybe this case would be what they needed to get back on track? Maybe, if she didn't avoid the herd of elephants that was sitting in the room every time they were alone. Despite Castle's willingness to come on board with this case she could still see questions dancing behind his eyes. Questions that she didn't know if she could answer yet.

"I have an idea! If we want to catch this guy we should just go up on the roof of the precinct and dust off the bat symbol." Castle looked pleased with himself and Kate couldn't say that she wasn't pleased with the lightness in mood inside the car's interior.

"He isn't batman. Batman doesn't leave quotes from intelligent literature at his crime scene."

"Hey, Bruce Wayne was a classy guy."

Kate shifted the car into park but didn't make a move to get out right away. She didn't know if she was ready to break out of the moments of magic and safety the car ride had provided her.

"Na na na na nuh nah na na, Na na na na nuh nah na na Batman."

"Please promise me you won't sing at the crime scene." With that she ducked out of the car and into the world.


End file.
